Deputy Minister Hisbullah participating in the committee stage debate on budget 2015 under the expenditure headings of the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs, said: “Opposition MP Wijayakala Maheshwaran said there were 40,000 war widows in Kilinochchi. Only 20 percent of them lost their spouses owing to the conflict. The rest lost their husbands because of deaths due to natural causes and divorce. You should not peddle wrong information for those anti-Sri Lankan forces in the international community would make use of them.”

He said: “There are around 38,000 families in the Kilinochchi District. Of them there are only 7,852 families of which a woman in the householder. Only 20% women in that district could be counted as war-affected widows.”

Deputy Minister Hisbullah said that the government was constructing houses to provide shelter for the children who became orphans due to conflict. “Large sums of funds have been allocated for the child development. Do not forget the fact there was a conflict in this country for 30 years. None would be able to rebuild it in a single day,” the deputy minister added. (Special Reporter/HC)